


Heavy Heart

by theplushfrog



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Assisted Suicide, Calliope is a werewolf, Complete, F/F, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Sadstuck, mythical beings are normal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:00:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theplushfrog/pseuds/theplushfrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calliope is a werewolf, but that's not really that strange--I mean your adopted brother is a fae who glows orange.</p>
<p>She is also your girlfriend.  Your girlfriend who has attacked your best friend and nearly killed her.</p>
<p>Everything kind of goes to shit after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calliope

"Hey Callie! I was totally just gonna call you, babe, how you--"

"Roxy." Calliope's voice was fragile, barely more than a whisper. It was the kind of tone that cut through the bubbly froth of your greeting.

You cradled the phone against your ear. "What is it, babe? What's wrong? Where are you?" You turned away from Rose's curious expression, heart held tight in your chest.

"It's him." Her voice was interrupted by a cracking sob. "I'm so sorry. Roxy, I'm sorry, I couldn't stop him." The werewolf's voice grew thick and muddled with apologies and tears.

"Callie, what's happened?" Gently, so gently, you coax. You hear shuffling from behind me as Rose takes your private tone to mean she should shoo her vampire girlfriend from the couch, up the stairs. Your phone beeped. Another person was trying to get a hold of you. The screen flashed Dirk's contact.

Calliope didn't answer right away, still muttering apologies between tears. "It's Jane. He hurt her, Roxy. I hurt her."

\--

Your family wasn't perfect.

No family really was, but yours in particular....

Your father and mother had divorced before you were born. For some reason or another, that didn't stop them from having two more kids afterward. Although to be fair, Dave and Rose were twins, so it was more of a two-for-one deal. Your father had been taking care of the boys, while mom took the girls--that's just how it was. You and Rose had grown up in the Lalonde household while your four brothers grew up under Mr Strider's rule.

Well, three blood-related brothers, one adopted. One of your brothers was a changling whom your parents had ended up officially adopting.

You see, the fae were tricksters, and might seem harmless--but you should never turn your back on a fae. When you were very small, fae had come to steal one of you away, as they are wont to do when parents aren't watching. Normally they leave a fae child in the human's place and parents don't even notice until the kid hits puberty and suddenly there are wings or whatever. They had meant to take your little brother, Dave, but accidentally took your own twin, Dirk, instead.

It was hard not to notice that there was suddenly two Daves and a missing Dirk.

It took a few years, but your parents managed to hunt down Dirk and make the fae give him back to his proper family.

You're still not totally sure what happened those years, but he never was the same afterward. Rose thinks it's because he misses his adopted family. You think it was probably some sort of weirdo magic they put on him. Either way, since the fae didn't want their Dave returned, and no one could tell the two apart, your parents ended up adopting him.

They were both still called Dave (Dave Alpha Strider and Dave Beta Strider), just like your oldest brother was Dirk Jr and your twin was Dirk III, both after your father. (You were named after your mom, and Rose was named after your maternal grandmother.) You all had taken bets on which Dave was the fae but no one was really ready for the fact Dave B started glowing _orange_ one day.

Then your father had died.

Your oldest brother took over as head of the Strider household, even though mom offered to take them in.

You had holidays together and pretended to be a big happy family.

But no one's perfect.

\--

Dirk met you at the hospital, his sunglasses doing nothing to hide the redness under his eyes.

Feferi, Jade, and Jake were already in the room, huddled around Jane's bed. You focused on their tired and raw faces for a moment before you pulled in a breath and took the last step inside the hospital room.

She looked so small.

Covered in wires and bandages, her cheerful, rosy cheeks were pale and only barely moving with the weak rise and fall of her chest. Jane was tough as nails and your very best friend--your stomach twisted in pain at seeing her this way.

You stayed there for hours, sitting next to Jane's side. You're not really sure when it was that you sat down, but when the streetlights shifted through the window slates, you realized your legs were numb from sitting so long in such an uncomfortable chair.

Feferi gathered you all up and shooed you out, saying everyone should get some rest because "Jane wouldn't want to sea her fronds sick from not taking care of ourshellselves when she wakes up!"

No one mentioned that Feferi herself didn't follow us out. If anyone was going to watch over your best friend, you supposed you could trust the nixie to make sure Jane was safe.

Outside the hotel room, your sister sat, holding Calliope's hand as the older girl cried. Rose looked relieved to see you and quickly took leave.

Calliope clung to you like a drowning person to a lifevest.

"Shhhhooosh." You rubbed the back of her arm, trying just as hard to hold myself together as to hold Callie together. You combed a hand through her bleached white hair. Her long wirey arms wrapped tight around your shoulders, her frame nearby bent in half to meet your height.

\--

Mom had sent us to a mixed species school because she wanted us to "expand our horizons". Rose had thought was a passive aggressive way of getting back at her for dating a vampire. You thought it was probably so you could go to the same school as all your brothers without anyone causing a fuss.

It was there you had met Calliope.

She had been abnormally tall, even then. When everyone introduced themselves in homeroom, she had stuttered something about being a writer in a soft and uncertain voice and people had snickered. You had exclaimed how awesome that was--your mother was a well-known published author after all.

She had fallen into your group like an awkward goose in a flock of ducks. She was so very shy, but Jane, Jake, and your twin had taken a liking to her the same as you and the five of you had been inseparable all throughout school.

It had taken a long time to figure out that Callie wasn't human. Not that you were racist. Jane was a lapin shapeshifter and Jake was a canine shapeshifter. Dave A was dating a half-dragon and that wasn't even technically _legal_ yet. You really couldn't care less who was or wasn't human.

You had been excited to finally have a friend who you could drag into the segregated parts of the shopping markets, but Callie made every excuse to not show up.

Rose had been the first to point out that Calliope also never visited anyone after sundown. She always made some excuse and left whenever the moon could even _possibly_ show in the sky. The only times she stayed were on very heavily overcast nights and nights when it was a new moon, and even then, she tended towards wearing clothing that covered every inch of her skin, even if it was well into the 90's for temperature.

Kankri nearly had an ulcer when you had asked for him to tell to you about werebeasts. He was one of Aranea's weirder friends, but he did come in handy from time to time when you needed to know more about social issues. You didn't want to lose your friendship with Calliope by fucking this up.

Werebeasts had a bad rap. It was practically a written rule that a stereotypical horror flick would have a werebeast as the killer. Media played on the idea that many werebeasts hid their nature and were otherwise indistinguishable to humans, which in turn, kept werebeasts underwraps for fear of being run out of their communities for being "dangerous" (which was illegal, Kankri assured you). Everyone knew that werebeasts were born werebeasts, and it wasn't a disease, but rather a matter of genes--but some people were still afraid that a werebeast bite would change them.

It was basically a load of bullshit. Typical human xenophobia and racism.

Callie was so sweet. She was tall, lanky, and not very feminine, but ever so cute anyway. Ever since your mom had learned Callie was an orphan, she had spent holidays with your crazy family. You had never felt afraid she would chew your head off.

Eventually, you had confronted her about it and ended up accidentally (because you weren't known for being the smartest when drunk on liquid courage) coming face to face with Callie's moon-mad beast-self. It was a near thing, but Dave B had ended up saving your ass.

You and your friends had banned together to help Calliope. Whenever Callie spent a night at the high security government buildings that were set aside specifically for werebeasts so they could have safe places to take in moonlight and let their bodies change. Every werebeast had to check in on a monthly basis to these buildings, because werebeasts physically required at least a full night a month to absorb moonlight and let their beast-selves loose, or they would begin going insane. It was scary to know how dangerous it was for Calliope to ever forget to go, or even get caught outside when the moon was bright.

The first morning you came to greet her, she had avoided meeting your eyes. You had brought a cute dress for her and a plate of pancakes via Jane's awesome cooking. The pancakes had been cold and you had forgotten the syrup, but Callie had looked ready to cry when you gave her the tupperware.

You drove her to school afterward and sat in the car with her when she really did finally cry. You had carefully wiped her face clean and redid her makeup after she calmed down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're expecting a happy ending, you might want to turn around and read some other fic. Check out the fics in my bookmarks for example. Most of those are very lovely and end in happy fluffy ways.
> 
>  
> 
> For world-building questions, I refer you to my [tumblr](http://theplushfrog.tumblr.com/ask). Yes, the world is set in modern times. No, everything is not hunky dory just because mythical beings are around. Davesprite is whatever kind of fae you feel like he should be, and no his biological parents aren't going to take him back. I don't know if you've noticed, but fae are generally kind of a bag of dicks. Dave dating a half-dragon (Terezi if you missed the reference) is illegal because dragons are considered beasts and are enslaved in most countries. Hence Dave is basically committing bestiality under their laws, even though most people by now know that enslaving dragons is wrong because they are just as intelligent (maybe more so) than any of the other intelligent species. Terezi herself is a weird grey area, on account of being only half dragon, her other parent was a kind of fae. Dragon civil rights are a major issue that will never come up again in this story. Maybe in another story.
> 
> Also werebeast =/= shapeshifter, those are different species altogether. Shapeshifters can change whenever they want into a certain animal form, they generally have traits of that animal in their humanoid form. Werebeasts only change under moonlight into a certain anthropomorphic animal form. They are kind of like opposites. Not that anyone cares.


	2. Caliborn

The sunlight was warming your cheek when you woke. The cool silk of your bedclothes were a nice contrast to the blankets’ toasty warmth from the morning’s rays. Lazily kicking out of your nighttime cocoon of fabric, you rolled over but found a pair of red eyes looking out from your lover's face.

There was a moment before your pink eyes widened and your voice stirred in want to shriek.

"Shut it, bitch." It was Calliope's voice, but the tone was so different. It was like watching someone take a violin, which usually made such a sweet sound, and slamming it against a wall.

You bristled, sitting up with your gun in hand, pointed at the intruder (in the house and in her body). "Who the fuck are you?"

A crackling laugh rang out like a old broken bell. "Gods, she really doesn't tell you anything, does she?"

"What did you do to Calliope?"

Those red eyes were matched with a wide, toothy grin (you had never notice that she even had that many teeth) and a whistle followed. "Fucking bitch, no wonder she doesn't share you." You felt those foreign eyes sweep your body, but you kept your gun steady, naked lips pulling back in a silent snarl. "You're one ugly bitch! So many curves but you're not even a full circle, like the other one--at least she had some weight on her. You're not even a meal."

You was still in your police training, but you were fairly certain nothing in the book mentioned when your lover started eying you like a piece of meat on a stick.

Even worse when her eyelids flickered and her body suddenly went slack and slumped back onto the mattress. Had that been a waking nightmare? Succubus? You were fairly certain succubi stealing others' bodies was just a racist myth and not actually something they could do...

Fuck you wanted a drink.

Why had you given up drinking again? Oh right, because you hadn't been able to bare Rose's habits slowly coming to match your own. She had nearly flunked out of college altogether, but you both had made a pact to get better. Great, now you felt guilty on top of frustrated, confused, and a bit scared.

You still had the gun in hand when Callie's eyelids flickered open again. You froze.

"Roxy..?" Her speech seemed a bit slurred and confused, but she didn't drink... It was only when her eyes opened, and you saw her eyes were their usual green, did you begin to relax.

"Sony--I mean sorry, babe. Just a nightmare." You tried to smile, but the way her eyebrows knit together made you sure that had only made it worse. Her eyes twitched to the gun, then back. Fuck, she knew you usually had better control on your firearms than to pull one on her of all people... "Oh, gods, I'm sorry babe, I didn't mean to scar--"

But Callie's completely horrified expression cut you short. "WHAT DID HE DO???"

\--

Caliborn. Born of Callie. That was what she had named the voice in her head.

Except that voice wasn't just a voice anymore.

Apparently it was something that happened sometimes with werebeasts, that since their beast form came with an altered consciousness, sometimes that mindset began actting like its own person. Especially when the werebeast was unwilling to coexist with their beast and human natures at the same time. And Callie had looked even guiltier when she had said it was common in werebeasts who didn't absorb enough moonlight on a regular basis.

When a werebeast doesn't get enough moonlight, they start to lose the sanity they have in the sunlight. Chipped away until there's nothing BUT the beast's vicious and bloodthirsty nature left.

You could see why horrorflicks were so obsessed with the idea, but honestly... sitting here, holding Callie in your arms and having her cry about her slow drain of sanity....

You don't think you could ever see a horrorflick the same again.

"Shoooosh." You patted her check and combed your hand through her dry and rough hair. No matter what she did, the bleaching had always made her hair rough and straw-like at times. You didn't care, you thought she looked cute, even that time she bleached it so much that it all fell out. You had bothered Rose into making Callie the cutest knitted caps, and kissed her stubbily scalp everynight until it grew back. Now you pressed a kiss to her off-center widow's peak and whispered calming words that didn't make sense.

Rose had warned you that most werebeasts didn't live past their 30s. It was true that some accidently killed themselves under influence of the moonlight, and others were victims of hatecrimes.... but a majority of them took their own lives.

Sanity wasn't something that could be gained back by just fixing her moonlight intake. It was something she would have to fight to get back--if that was even possible. And every slip, every month too late, or weakness of will, another chip would be wittled away from her. Her mind was her own enemy.

He had attacked Jane. He had nearly attacked Roxy too.

We would get through this. This seemingly impossible thing. We would get through this together. You whispered these promises between your kisses.

\--

Twice a month, you made sure to drive her yourself.

Jane recovered, but was shakey around Calliope still. Everyone seemed on edge around her, no matter your assurances that you had it under control. Callie started making excuses to avoid friends and parties--and not just ones at night. She kept away from your apartment, and didn't meet your eyes when you brought up moving in together.

Things started to get better. As Jane's injuries disappeared, so did some of the cloud hanging over your friends. You began to forcefully drag Callie with you to brunches.

He still made his appearance known. Sometimes she would call you in the middle of the night. The last time, he had punched one of her mirrors, and you had needed to drive her (carefully covered up so no moonlight touched her skin) to the hospital to remove the glass from her fingers. You had gotten good at catching her whenever she slumped over in the middle of the day, and dragging her to a bathroom to pin her down when he decided to show his awful red eyes. Your friends were always worried, but no one ever followed you when this happened. Not even Sollux, who usually enjoyed your pain.

You got into a fight with Calliope about Caliborn. You know it was a stupid fight, but the next day he had managed to snap her wrist... and she hadn't called you. You dragged her to the hospital, and her deadeyed stare... It broke your heart. You vowed that, no matter how hard it was, that you would never yell at her again. She had enough to deal with.

Maybe that was why you stopped dragging her along to brunches. Her bruises and bandages got her strange looks and you couldn't bring yourself to force her to sit through that. Dirk and Aranea were concerned, but only Dirk ever came to visit. She would smile when she saw him, but it didn't meet her eyes. Not anymore.

You really missed her real smile. You missed her dimples and the sparkle in her eyes when she got really excited about something she was writing. You hadn't seen her touch her computer in ages.

\--

You're not sure when it was that you caught yourself thinking she was a burden, but you felt so guilty with yourself that you couldn't bare to make the trip from your apartment to hers that day. You had claimed it was because you were so tired from work, but even her text had seemed sad.

What were you doing wrong? Was it wrong to want to hang out with your friends some days? Your time with them sometimes ate into time you used to spend solely with Callie--but if she wasn't going to ever leave the house, that wasn't your fault right? ...Right? Her voice on the phone was cheerful in that tired way that was the norm now, like she didn't mean it, but she was keeping it up for appearances.

It made you so angry. But you didn't want to yell at Callie. Poor sweet Calliope.

It wasn't her fault. It wasn't.

Except a little voice in your head whispered that it was.

\--

Jane was sprawled with her head in your lap, you stroked the long floppy bunny ears that parted her hair in funny ways. Eridan was pestering you via text, but the movie playing wasn't half bad. It was a pretty good day, even with Eridan's usual stupidity. Jane giggled, "It makes things sound weird when you do that, you know."

"Should I--" You broke off before the end of your gentle tease because Callie's contact was on the screen of your phone as it buzzed and waited for you to answer. You sighed and apologized to Jane, before you squirmed away and swiped your finger to answer the call, "Babe?"

"R-Roxy..."

"What's wrong?" You couldn't help the chill in your voice, although you could see in your mind's eye how she flinched before the slow and tearful answer came. You didn't even think before you were bolting from the room.

\--

There was blood on her hands. It was in her hair too. One of her front teeth was missing.

You took her shoulder and guided her to the bathroom. She limped under your hand and stared like she wasn't seeing anything at all. You turned on the shower and just let it soak both of you, clothes and all. It was cold at first but neither of you did more than flinch. By the time the water warmed up, she had buried her face in your shoulder as her body shuddered with sobs. Callie had never been mild kind of crier. When she cried, she did it with her whole body, and this time it felt like the quakes racking her body might just destroy her.

You don't think about the blood that is dug under her fingernails. You don't think about how it's not her blood.

You don't think about how your poor, sweet Calliope, who had tried to return ants to their hill instead of just stepping on them, your poor, sweet Calliope now had murder on her short list of sins.

The tv's muttering about the guy--Andrew something--was barely audible, but you closed the shower door with your foot and the sound disappeared from your ears. Neither of you had cared about getting the floor wet when you got in, and you weren't when you got out. You grabbed for the fluffiest, warmest towel you could find in the linen closet and wrapped it around your lover. It was even her favorite lime green. You grabbed a pink one for yourself--probably one of yours you had left from a previous stay. Callie's eyes were red and ringed with bags so dark that they looked like bruises. They didn't look at you even when you scrubbed her cheek with a bit of your towel.

You stayed quiet. You didn't know what to say.

Callie twitched and you tensed, but it wasn't Caliborn, just Callie's face appearing to collapse upon itself. Her lips pulled in a wobbly frown that had sadly become more her norm than her characteristic smile. "Roxy... I..."

The silence between you stretched. You had failed her. You knew this even before she asked one last favour. Maybe she had failed herself, but you had made a promise... and that promise was broken.

Things weren't going to get better.

Everything was shattered and even though you had pieced the bits together and taped it up--

It wasn't enough. You couldn't fix this. You both could run, but there wasn't anywhere you could go to escape Caliborn. How could you escape him when it was already here?

You kissed the knuckles of her fingers, one by one, and made a new promise. Even though it would break you. Maybe you deserved that.

\--

It was later, after you watched Callie's eyes thank you over the edge of the bridge before she fell, after you drove home and poured yourself three shots of your favorite martini, after the sun came back up and you were still staring at your hands. It was later, after you realized she was really gone--gone forever--that you cried. The tears didn't stop when the police came or when Dirk wrapped his arms around you so tightly, like he was afraid you would be the next one over that bridge. You're not sure they ever stopped, just that sometimes your eyes dry out and you can smile a little bit--until a memory comes back and your eyes remember what they were doing. Days go by like this in one smear that you can't pull apart.

The police say it's surprisingly common for werebeasts crimes to involve murder-suicides. Their faces are tired when they give you her things. You don't really notice them leaving, but suddenly the house feels so big and empty. The silence rings inside your body like you've become a giant bell. 

You skim your fingertips over the case of Callie's computer, and a movement seems to ripple through your bones. Dipping your fingers into the laptop and peeling it open, you sit the slowly warming device on your lap and absently wrap your scarf tighter around your neck. You hesitate when the file opens, fingers hovering like over the edge of a giant cliff. When they come down, the force moves through you and words spill.

You write.

And you don't stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may write other fics in this verse, but I doubt any will be as depressing as this one. I just needed this one out of my head.
> 
> Feel free to prod me if you see any mistakes or you have any questions about the story or the world it's part of, here or on my tumblr: theplushfrog. I don't usually write Roxy, so I hope I did alright from her perspective. Hope you enjoyed your sadstuck and delicious misery?


End file.
